Western Illinois Historical Review © 2017 Volume VIII, Spring 2017 ISSN 2153-1714
Sports, Race, and Politics: The Olympic Boycott of Apartheid Sport
Matt Bersell
Western Illinois University
1
In the article “Hitting Apartheid for Six? The Politics of the South African Boycott,”
Douglas Booth writes that during the second half of the twentieth century, the international
community regarded the South African government as a “pariah” due to its racially restrictive
apartheid laws that denied equal economic, political, and social rights to the nation’s nonwhite
majority. According to Booth, “foreign governments, multinational corporations, churches, the
media, campaign groups, and individuals” increasingly condemned apartheid and joined
international actions against the South African government through organized boycotts,
sanctions, and embargoes.1 One specific form of international solidarity was the movement
against apartheid sport which resulted in South Africa’s suspension from the 1964 and 1968
Olympic Games and its eventual expulsion from the premier international athletic competition in
1970. As a result of its commitment to racial segregation in sport and the exclusion of blacks
from international competition, South Africa was not allowed to participate at the Olympics until
1992.2 Through the historical examination of the relationship between sports, politics, and race,
it is evident that the boycott of South African sports, specifically the ban levied by the
International Olympic Committee, had significant political and social ramifications.
Sports, Politics, and Race
Despite countless attempts to separate the two fields, sports and politics have been linked
since ancient times.3 Barrie Houlihan finds the “the interweaving of sport and politics” at the
international, national, and regional/local levels.4 According to Roger I. Abrams, sports not only
offered politicians opportunities to appeal to broad audiences but also provided athletes with a
1 Douglas Booth, “Hitting Apartheid for Six? The Politics of the South African Sports Boycott,” Journal of
Contemporary History 38, no. 3 (July 2003): 477. 2 Rob Nixon, “Apartheid on the Run: The South African Sports Boycott,” Transition 58 (1992): 77-8, 82.
3 Roger I. Abrams, Playing Tough: The World of Sports and Politics (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2013),
xi. 4 Barrie Houlihan, The Government of Politics and Sport (London: Routledge, 1991), 7.
2
platform from which they could express their own political views. While most athletes remain
apolitical during competition, there are numerous sports figures “who were able to raise
fundamental issues of fairness and politics because of their athletic success.”5 By transforming
their respective playing fields into a public stage where they could advocate for political and
social change, athletes such as Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, and Jesse Owens “became important
symbols for an oppressed minority, providing hope along with a full measure of pride and self-
esteem.” 6
In another example that demonstrates how athletes from dominant racial or ethnic
groups similarly used sport as a political platform, at the urging of team owner Robert Sarver,
members of the Phoenix Suns, an American basketball franchise, voted unanimously to wear
“’Los Suns’” uniforms during the 2010 season in order to protest the state of Arizona’s newly
introduced anti-immigration laws.7
After an 1894 tour of Europe and the United States, in which he increasingly viewed
sport as the central method for furthering global unity, Pierre de Coubertin founded the
International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.). Just two years later, the I.O.C. famously revived the
ancient Olympic Games with the hope that sport would influence world politics and lead to the
formation of diplomatic linkages, international cooperation, and—ultimately—peace. Yet,
Andrew Strenk argues that what members of the I.O.C. failed to realize was “that they had
further politicized sport. If sport was going to influence politics then the interaction would not
remain one-way street.”8 The I.O.C.’s decisions to incorporate national flags and anthems into
Olympic ceremonies and to “designate competitors according to their country” not only
undermined the organization’s claims of internationalism but also promoted both politics and
5 Abrams, 1, 4
6 Abrams, 226.
7 Abrams, 4.
8 Andrew Strenk, “What Price Victory? The World of International Sports and Politics,” The Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 445 (September 1979): 138-9.
3
nationalism.9 According to Abrams, the modern Olympic Games provided the nations of the
world with the unique opportunity of measuring their prominence on the global stage. Nations
customarily have attributed their athletic achievements at the Games to the superiority of their
political, social, and sometimes racial ideologies. For example, Hitler regarded Nazi Germany’s
success at the 1936 Olympic Games, a competition in which the German team amassed more
medals than any other participating country, as the triumph of Aryan and National Socialist
ideologies.10
In the decades following its reestablishment during the late nineteenth century, the
modern Olympic Games has emerged as the premier international sporting event. While only
fourteen countries attended the first modern Games in Athens, participation in the quadrennial
competition dramatically increased throughout the twentieth century.11
Over two hundred nations
from across the world now send teams to compete in the Games.12
In order to make the Games
available to a global audience and not just the spectators in the stadium, Trevor Taylor writes
that the I.O.C. relied on the media, specifically television, to promote Olympic events and
athletes. The development and introduction of satellites during the 1960’s resulted in the
broadcasting of Olympic events to over half of the world’s population.13
John Hoberman further
notes that the modern “Olympic movement has entertained billions by staging world-class
athletic competition.”14
Both Abrams and Houlihan argue that the relationship between sports and politics has
been most visible, historically, at the international level. Abrams indicates that, throughout
9 Strenk, 139.
10 Abrams, 69, 144-5, 149.
11 Abrams, 53, 55.
12John Nauright, “Global Games: Culture, Political Economy, and Sport in the Globalised World of the 21
st
Century,” Third World Quarterly 25, no. 7 (2004): 132. 13
Trevor Taylor, “Politics and the Olympic Spirit,” in The Politics of Sport, ed. Lincoln Allison (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1986), 231. 14
John Hoberman, “Think Again: The Olympics,” Foreign Policy 167 (2008): 22.
4
modern history, nations customarily have used sports as a ‘”soft weapon’” in diplomatic
relations. By competing internationally, nations across the world use sports to not only promote
national unity but also gain worldwide recognition for the quality of their athletes and teams—
and, by extension, societies.15
Even though the Olympics are regarded widely as the event that
best exemplifies the pure ideals of sports, this global competition frequently has been used “as a
forum for government propaganda or as an arena for international politics.” In fact, Houlihan
notes “there have been few Olympic Games this century which have not been the source or focus
of political controversy.” At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, over twenty African nations
boycotted the Games to protest the inclusion and participation of New Zealand, which recently
had allowed its national rugby team to compete against the racially segregated South African
Springboks.16
Furthermore, as Strenk notes, at the international level sports serve “as a means of
diplomatic recognition or isolation.”17
Although sports and politics commonly intersect in a multitude of ways, Abrams claims
that at certain moments throughout history, the two spheres have combined to bring about
fundamental social change. He calls attention to the achievements of famous African American
athletes, such as Jack Johnson and Jackie Robinson, which symbolized the gradual social and
political transformation of the United States into a less segregated society. Furthermore, Nelson
Mandela, the first president of a multiracial South Africa, utilized the 1995 Rugby World Cup as
a means of reconciling and unifying a South African nation that, until recently, had been racially
divided for decades.18
Abrams asserts that sports represent much more than a simple game; they
also “catalyze change, engage individuals in group activities, and, ultimately, provide salvation
15
Abrams, 6, 9. 16
Houlihan, 6-8. 17
Strenk, 129. 18
Abrams, 99, 190-1.
5
for societies otherwise divided by race, economics and heritage.” The American and South
African case studies demonstrate that sports can serve as a path for both political equality and
racial integration.19
Similar to politics, the concept of race also shares a profound connection with the modern
sporting world. Richard Thompson asserts there is a multitude of evidence demonstrating how
“sport can be a powerful force in uniting diverse sections of communities whether the divisions
are tribal, social or racial.”20
Modern sport, for instance, has proved effective at undermining
systems of social stratification based on race. The gradual commercialization of sports as
entertainment that placed an “emphasis on performance” regardless of an athlete’s color
accelerated racial integration and equality on the playing field. 21
Thompson emphasizes that
“Race discrimination in sport is almost universally repudiated as incompatible with the ethic of
sportsmanship.”22
This study will demonstrate, however, that Thompson’s assertion that sports
represent one of the most effective methods of racial inclusion did not apply to South Africa
where all sports remained racially segregated during the second-half of the twentieth century.23
When further examining Thompson’s analysis of the relationship between race and
sports, it is evident that his arguments are comparable to the claims made by Abrams. Both
authors argue that members of racial minority groups have used their athletic successes to
advocate for political and societal change. These observations thus demonstrate an increased
understanding of the inherently political nature of modern sport. According to Thompson, the
athletic achievements of racial minorities are “not only a source of pride and self-confidence for
their fellows, but also gives the stars the national prestige which enables them to influence the
19
Abrams, 19. 20
Richard Thompson, Race and Sport (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 9. 11. 21
Thompson, 3-4. 22
Thompson, 15. 23
Thompson, 15.
6
pattern of segregation directly.” During the summer of 1963, Floyd Patterson, a former
heavyweight boxing champion, traveled with Jackie Robinson to Birmingham, Alabama where
the two African American sports icons encouraged the city’s black community “not to let up in
their fight for integration.” The racial inclusiveness of sport “discourages any pattern of
segregation” because it presents minority sportsmen an opportunity to be seen as athletically
talented individuals rather than members of a perceived subordinate race.24
Sports Boycotts as a Political Tool
Perhaps one of the most prominent methods of using sports as a platform to advocate for
political and social change is through the organization and implementation of a sports boycott.
According to Marlene Goldsmith, the history of using sporting boycotts as political instruments
can be traced as far back as 420 B.C. when members of the ancient Olympic Games barred
Sparta from competing due to the Greek city state’s failure to pay a fine after breaking the
Olympiad’s customary truce. Of the seventeen Olympic Games held between the years 1920 and
1992, “there have been boycotts against, or exclusion of athletes from, all 17.”25
Although the
modern Games sought the universal participation of the world’s greatest athletes and the
inclusion of all nations, Abrams writes “many Olympic Games experienced boycotts of some
sort.”26
In a comprehensive overview of sports boycotts, Goldsmith describes multiple instances
in recent history in which nations either boycotted the Olympics or were banned from the most
significant international sporting competition altogether. He claims “perhaps the boycotts that
have been most written about” took place during the 1980 and 1984 Summer Games.27
For
24
Thompson, 12-3. 25
Marlene Goldsmith, “Sporting Boycotts as a Political Tool,” The Australian Quarterly 67, no. 1 (1995): 11. 26
Abrams, 145-6. 27
Goldsmith, 11.
7
Abrams, the American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games and subsequent Soviet boycott of the
Los Angeles Olympics four years later represented the “lingering distrust and ideological
animosity” between the two global superpowers during the latter stages of the Cold War. 28
Despite an improving relationship, both the American and Soviet governments continued to use
international competitions such as the Olympics as instruments of foreign policy.29
While the
American and Soviet Olympic boycotts serve as noteworthy examples of how sporting boycotts
are primarily used to make political statements, Goldsmith argues that other movements, such as
the international boycott of South African apartheid sport during the late twentieth century
“extended far beyond the Olympic Games, and is one that was imposed by member countries of
the United Nations.”30
Goldsmith subsequently attempts to discover the reasons why sporting boycotts have
become so common throughout modern Olympic history. While sporting boycotts are usually
only part of an “overall package” of economic sanctions levied against a country, the results of a
sports boycott are more immediate and clear. “The targeting of sport,” Goldsmith argues, “is the
targeting of a nation’s right to participate in the international community, in the area most
immediately visible to the citizens of that nation.”31
A form of non-aggressive and nonviolent
protest, sports boycotts primarily are used to attack the national morale of a country by excluding
it from international competition. In a recent example of how the international community used
sporting boycotts as a political weapon, both the United Nations and the I.O.C. expelled South
28
Abrams, 150. 29
Abrams, 171. 30
Goldsmith, 11-2. 31
Goldsmith, 13-14.
8
Africa and Rhodesia from international sport in response to human rights violations, specifically
state-sanctioned racism against each country’s black majority population.32
Historiography
In the article “Sport, Politics, and the Engaged Historian,” Allen Guttmann writes that the
intersection of sports and politics is an integral feature of modern sports historiography.33
In
examining sports historiography, John Nauright indicates that the historical study of international
sport and its political impact has received increased attention during the past thirty years.34
The
historical analysis of the relationship between sports and politics is a relatively recent
phenomenon largely ignored during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when
“historians seldom commented on the political implications of sport or on the political
controversies that it engendered.” By the late twentieth century, however, sports historians
became far more aware of the connection between sports and politics than their predecessors
who tended to record only the rules of sport and the notable athletic achievements of famous
sportsmen. Although some contemporary sports historians regard the two fields of study as
separate and incompatible, most “now acknowledge the political implications of sport and many
emphasize the political controversies that have occurred within and around the domain of
sport.”35
Despite being a relatively new field of historiography, there are several areas within the
overall study of the relationship between sports and politics that have received considerable
attention. Guttmann points out “Many politically engaged historians have dealt with sport and
32
Goldsmith, 14-5. 33
Allen Guttmann, “Sport, Politics, and the Engaged Historian,” Journal of Contemporary History 38, no. 3 (July
2003): 363. 34
John Nauright, Long Run to Freedom: Sport, Culture, and Identities in South Africa (Morgantown: Fitness
Information Technology, 2010), 17. 35
Guttmann, 363.
9
the politics of race and ethnicity (especially, but not exclusively, in South Africa, the USA,
Australia, and Ireland.)” The politicization of international sporting competitions such as the
Olympics also has been a central subject of historical evaluation. Although sports journalists at
the Olympic Games of the early twentieth century mostly ignored the political controversies
surrounding the premier international sporting event, contemporary sports historians analyze
these political disputes in great detail.36
Nauright further claims there are numerous historical
works that place international sport within a social, cultural, and political framework. He notes,
“while we are beginning to get a fuller picture of sport and society in North America, Britain,
and Australasia, in South Africa sports studies is in its infancy.”37
Even though there are few social histories that specifically examine black and non-racial
sport in South Africa, as a result of the campaign to boycott apartheid sport during the late
twentieth century, a substantial amount of historical scholarship regarding racially exclusive
sport in South African has developed.38
Guttmann also asserts, “research into the role of sport
within the racial politics of South Africa has been especially intensive.” Historical works, such as
Richard Lapchick’s narrative of South Africa’s exclusion from the Olympic Games, provide
much-needed insight into the international campaign against South African apartheid sport that
took place during the late twentieth century.39
In addition, Nauright writes that the works of
Douglas Booth, Bruce Kidd, and Richard Thompson each offer transnational historiographical
perspectives of the South African sports boycott and serve as “invaluable historical documents as
well as sources of information about sport and society in South Africa.”40
When further
analyzing existing historical scholarship of the international sports boycott, Rob Nixon indicates
36
Guttmann, 363-4, 372. 37
Nauright, 19. 38
Nauright, 18. 39
Guttmann, 368. 40
Nauright, 18.
10
that most transnational works primarily examine the boycott’s significance in nations such as
Britain, Australia, and New Zealand—where the leading sports overlapped with those played by
South Africa. Most of these histories, however, do not specifically evaluate the boycott’s impact
in the United States where the differences in premier national sports “deprived the American
anti-apartheid movement of a powerful populist focus for its actions.”41
Overview of the Global Anti-Apartheid Movement
The South African sports boycott constituted just one of many aspects of the global
movement that imposed harsh economic, political, military, and academic sanctions against the
South African apartheid government during the second-half of the twentieth century. According
to Gregory Houston, the activities conducted by the global anti-apartheid movement are divided
into three specific categories. They included protests aimed at isolating and boycotting the
apartheid state, movements that offered assistance to both the liberation movement and to the
many victims of apartheid, and a campaign “focused on providing publicity to inform and
mobilise world public opinion against apartheid and in support of the liberation struggle.” 42
Houston asserts there is little doubt that the global anti-apartheid movement significantly
contributed to the eventual collapse of the racially discriminatory institution in the 1990s.43
The origins of international solidarity against the South African government’s oppressive
system of racial segregation and discrimination can be traced back to the late 1940s. Soon after
the National Party formally introduced apartheid legislation, the newly independent nations of
Asia and Africa began to criticize the South African government for refusing to grant its black
populace the same rights and privileges that South African whites were guaranteed. According to
41
Nixon, 70. 42
Gregory Houston, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, vol. 3: International Solidarity, Part 1. South African
Democracy Education Trust. (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2008), 5. 43
Houston, 39.
11
Nancy Clark and William Worger, the growing movement against apartheid gained more
international recognition in 1952 when the representatives of thirteen Asian and African
countries attempted to convince fellow members of the United Nations (U.N.) that South African
apartheid was “‘both a threat to international peace and a flagrant violation of the basic
principles and fundamental freedoms which are enshrined’” in the U.N. charter. 44
International criticism of apartheid increased exponentially during the 1960s and 1970s as the
South African government enforced its apartheid policies in a particularly brutal fashion,
symbolized especially by the police killing in 1960 of sixty-nine Africans at Sharpeville.45
The
Sharpeville massacre “put the [global] spotlight on the apartheid regime, exposing its brutality
sharper than ever before.”46
In 1966, the U.N. General Assembly officially condemned South
African apartheid as a “’crime against humanity.’” In the immediate aftermath of the 1976
Soweto uprising, in which the apartheid regime once again used harsh force to repress nonviolent
black protests, the U.N. unanimously voted to introduce a mandatory trade embargo that forbade
all member nations from exporting arms and military equipment to South Africa.47
While the anti-apartheid movement gradually gained international prominence during the
1960s and 1970s, Clark and Worger argue that global solidarity against the South African
government peaked in the 1980s. During the late 1970s and 1980s, it became increasingly
apparent to many across the world that apartheid was “an extraordinarily oppressive system of
white rule over blacks.” As South Africa descended into “a form of civil war” between the white
minority government and black opponents of apartheid, “most of the rest of world joined in the
near universal condemnation of the South African government and supported international steps
44
Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger, South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, (Harlow, England: Pearson
Education Limited, 2011), 4-5. 45
Clark and Worger, 5. 46
Houston, 4. 47
Clark and Worger, 5.
12
to bring apartheid to an end, especially by enforcing” political, economic, and sporting
boycotts.48
Houston further notes that, as a result of sanctions such as the sports boycott, South
Africa became widely regarded as a “’pariah’” state during the 1980s and was virtually exiled
from the international community. As increasing numbers of white South Africans “began to feel
unwelcome the world over,” support for the apartheid regime waned.49
By 1990, the South
African government, finally succumbed to international pressure, repealed apartheid laws, and
vowed that all South Africans, regardless of color, would be ensured the same rights.50
Apartheid Sport in South Africa
Although the white minority government did not introduce apartheid legislation that
specifically authorized the racial segregation of the playing field, state policy and social practice
structured race relations in every facet of South African society including sport.51
According to
Richard Lapchick, the national sports organizations themselves enacted and enforced racially-
restrictive sports policies thus eliminating the need for an official state law.52
When it came to
participating in international competitions such as the Olympics, while South African whites
were allowed to compete, the South African government and the South African Olympic
Committee both forbid black athletes from representing their country on the global sporting
stage.53
Paul Martin further claims that the implied application of apartheid legislation to South
African sport dictated that foreign teams touring South Africa not include any nonwhite
players.54
48
Clark and Worger, 5. 49
Houston, 38. 50
Clark and Worger, 6. 51
Douglas Booth, The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1998), 86. 52
Richard E. Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1975), 8. 53
Nauright, 126 54
Paul Martin, “South African Sport: Apartheid’s Achilles Heel?” The World Today 40, no. 6 (June 1994): 235.
13
In a first-hand account of the racial divisions in South African sport, Dennis Brutus, one
of the leading figures of the South African sports boycott, recalls that during his childhood a
white man mockingly called Brutus and his friends “’future Springboks.’” Brutus further records
in his memoirs, “So I’m twelve or thirteen, listening to this. And it strikes me, this guy’s saying
that coloreds, blacks, won’t ever get onto the team.” This moment of his early life stuck with
Brutus in later years as he attempted to challenge the racial barriers that prevented blacks from
competing on national teams such as the Springboks, South Africa’s renowned rugby team.55
In
his historical analysis of South African apartheid sport, Richard Lapchick compares the racially
restrictive controls on the South African playing field to the restrictions made by Nazi Germany
that forbade German Jews from competing internationally. The segregationist sports policies of
Nazi Germany and the South African apartheid regime that divided athletes along racial and
ethnic lines also encompassed both sports administrators and spectators.56
According to Martin,
the entrenchment of apartheid within all aspects of South African society “made racial mixing on
the sports field and amongst spectators not merely socially unacceptable but illegal.”57
As a
result of the collective oppressiveness of segregationist apartheid laws, the black side of South
African stadiums routinely cheered for the opponents of South Africa’s all-white sports teams.58
Early Movements against Apartheid Sport
The introduction and development of the South African sports boycott directly coincided
with the growth of the larger, global anti-apartheid movement. In a 1971 paper presented to the
United Nations Units on Apartheid, Mary Corrigall notes that international solidarity against
racially-exclusive sports was, first, a domestic movement launched by South Africa’s non-white
55
Dennis Brutus, Poetry and Protest, ed. Lee Sustar and Aisha Karim (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 25. 56
Lapchick, 2, 10. 57
Martin, 235 58
Nixon, 58.
14
athletes and the representatives of the South African Sports Association during the 1950s. This
movement sought to “dispute the international membership of apartheid bodies which apply
racial principles to national sport.” To the early proponents of multiracial sport in South Africa,
“it was not enough to merely ensure that recognition was not accorded to racial bodies; their
place must be taken by non-racial sporting organisations.”59
The first of many victories against apartheid sport occurred in 1956, when the
International Table Tennis Federation (I.T.T.F.) rescinded the membership of the all-white South
African Table Tennis Union (S.A.T.T.U.) and formally recognized the non-racial South African
Table Tennis Board (S.A.T.T.B.) as the “sole controlling body.”60
According to Dennis Brutus, a
leading advocate for the international recognition of the S.A.T.T.B., the struggle to incorporate
South Africa’s multiracial sports bodies into the international sporting community directly
coincided with the formation of the I.T.T.F. during the early 1950s. Under the leadership of Ivor
Montagu, “’an enlightened and left-wing president,’” Brutus argues that the newly organized
I.T.T.F. responded favorably to the issue of racially-exclusive South African sport “’ in the sense
that in many other sports the world bodies had been established a long time before that. Here the
issue was a fresh one.’” 61
Although the South African government ultimately prohibited the S.A.T.T.B. from
competing internationally by revoking the passports of its athletes, Corrigall writes that the
precedent set in the field of table tennis encouraged other non-racial sports organizations in
South Africa to pursue international recognition.62
Following the accomplishment of the
S.A.T.T.B., the South African Cricket Board of Control “applied, without success,” for
59
Mary Corrigall, “International Boycott of South African Sport,” (Paper prepared for the United Nations Unit on
Apartheid, 1971), South African History Online, 1-9; Lapchick, 28. 60
Corrigall, 2. 61
Lapchick, 24. 62
Corrigall, 2.
15
membership in the Imperial Cricket Conference while the non-racial South African Weight-
Lifting and Body-Building Federation sought admittance into the I.O.C. so that its athletes could
participate in the 1960 Olympic Games.63
Even at the earliest stages of the struggle against
apartheid sport, increasing pressure from South Africa’s non-racial sports federations forced
several all-white sports bodies to compromise and grant concessions. After the S.A.T.T.U.’s
expulsion from international competition, the South African Amateur Cycling Federation
declared that “it would be willing to assist the non-white bodies and would consider sending
qualified nonwhite cyclists overseas to compete.”64
Writing during the height of the sports
boycott, Corrigall argues that the threat of isolation from the international sporting community
forced many white South Africans, especially athletes, to reconsider their support and tolerance
of racial discrimination in sport.65
While the movement against racially-exclusive sports in South Africa achieved a degree
of recognition domestically and abroad during the mid-1950s, Booth writes that the international
sporting community as a whole still exhibited little interest towards protesting apartheid sport.
When Dennis Brutus, the chairman of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, wrote
to various members of the I.O.C. “asking them to join the struggle against racist sport,” his
appeals were largely dismissed.66
Although “the struggle over the extension of apartheid into
sports” failed to gain substantial international recognition in the 1950s, pressure against the
South African apartheid regime gradually grew during the 1960s as a result of the Sharpeville
massacre and the increased police suppression of South African blacks that followed.67
63
Lapchick, 25. 64
Lapchick, 25. 65
Corrigall, 2. 66
Douglas Booth, “The South African Council on Sport and the Political Antinomies of the Sports Boycott,”
Journal of Southern Africa Studies 23, no. 1 (March 1997): 53. 67
Lapchick, 32.
16
According to Nixon, the Sharpeville massacre not only accelerated the determination of the anti-
apartheid movement but also provoked strong international responses against apartheid sports
teams “at the 1960 Olympics Games and, that same year, against New Zealand rugby players
departing for South Africa and South African cricketers arriving in England.”68
In 1961, just a year after the atrocities in Sharpeville, three different international sports
federations changed South Africa’s membership due to continued racial discrimination on the
playing field. Following the International Football Federation’s decision to ban the Football
Association of South Africa from all F.I.F.A. (International Federation of Association Football)
sponsored competitions, Brutus and other representatives of the South African Sports
Association, or S.A.S.A., appealed to the Commonwealth Games Federation to exclude the
apartheid state. After hearing the S.A.S.A.’s petition, the C.F.G’s advisory committee voted in
October to ban South Africa from the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Perth. While the
S.A.S.A. similarly requested that the International Cricket Council (I.C.C.) suspend the apartheid
state’s membership, the international cricket body ultimately decided to make all “test matches,”
important matches that determined international standing, with South Africa’s all-white cricket
team “’unofficial.’”69
In addition to domestic factors that escalated international solidarity against apartheid
sport, during the 1960’s the complexion and structure of the international sporting community
transformed when Eastern bloc and Third World nations began to use sport as a political weapon
against racism.70
Addressing the issue of racially segregated sport in 1968, the United Nations
requested “all states to suspend cultural, education, sporting, and other exchanges, with the
racism regime and with other organizations or institutions in South Africa which practice
68
Nixon, 77. 69
Lapchick, 37. 70
Booth, “The Politics of the South African Sports Boycott,” 480.
17
apartheid.”71
By the end of the 1960s, the I.O.C. along with the leading federations of over
twenty sports worldwide had expelled South Africa from international competition.72
Olympic Sports Boycott of South Africa
One of the most notable aspects of the South African sports boycott of the late twentieth
century was the movement spearheaded by Dennis Brutus and the South African Non-Racial
Olympic Committee (S.A.N.R.O.C.) that eventually led to the expulsion of South African
apartheid sports teams from the Olympic Games. According to Lapchick, “The 1950’s and
1960’s brought the issue of racism and the Olympic Movement to the foreground again with the
emergence of South Africa’s apartheid policy.” 73
Despite valid claims from non-racial sports
organizations that South Africa’s selection of all-white Olympic teams violated the I.O.C.’s
fundamental principles of universal inclusion, the I.O.C. initially “turned a blind eye to South
African selection as long as serious international protest was not readily evident.” 74
In 1959, the
I.O.C. ignored the S.A.S.A.’s appeals to suspend South Africa from the upcoming Olympic
Games in Rome unless the South African Olympic Committee (S.A.O.C.) reformed its selection
process to include blacks.75
Following its failure to secure South Africa’s suspension from the
1960 Games, the S.A.S.A organized the S.A.N.R.O.C. in 1962 with the hopes that this non-racial
sports body would eventually replace the discriminatory S.A.O.C. as “the truly representative
Olympic Committee in South Africa.”76
Under the leadership of Dennis Brutus, S.A.N.R.O.C not only sought international
assistance for multiracial sport in South Africa but also the isolation of all South African
71
Michael Beaulin, “International Sports Boycott,” Southern Africa: A Monthly Survey of News and Opinion,
July/August 1979. Northwestern University Libraries. African Activist Archive Project. 72
Nixon, 77. 73
Lapchick, “The Olympic Movement and Racism: An Analysis in Historical Perspective,” Africa Today 17, no. 6
(1970): 14. 74
Nauright, 136. 75
Nauright, 136. 76
Lapchick “The Politics of Race in International Sport,” 48.
18
apartheid sports from international competition.77
From its headquarters in Durban, Bruce Kidd
writes that S.A.N.R.O.C. quickly made its presence known and immediately began to lobby
sports federations, governments, and media outlets across the world to take action against
apartheid sport.78
According to Booth, S.A.N.R.O.C. launched an intense campaign to destroy
the segregationist structures in South African sport and to replace them with those that adhered
to Olympic principles of inclusivity. S.A.N.R.O.C. additionally called for an international
boycott of apartheid sport and urged both the I.O.C. and other international sporting federations
to expel white South African sports bodies.79
Nixon asserts that members of S.A.N.R.O.C.
believed that “leverage gained from pressure at the most illustrious and conspicuous level of
sport” could be used to overturn apartheid laws regarding education, housing, and access to
public amenities, which all denied South African blacks a fair and equal opportunity to compete
with whites on the playing field.80
While recognized as an accomplished poet, teacher, and journalist, Dennis Brutus is also
regarded as a prominent anti-apartheid activist who played a central role in the movement to
expel the South African apartheid state from the Olympic Games.81
In his autobiography, Brutus,
“an international symbol of the struggle for nonracial sport in South Africa,” writes that his work
in sport “has been one of the most useful areas for me and one that give me great satisfaction.”82
Born in Salisbury, Rhodesia on November 28, 1924, Brutus’s affinity for sport started at an early
age, an interest that remained with him throughout his life. From his athletic experiences as a
college student at Fort Hare University College, the only black university in all of Southern
77
Bruce Kidd, “The Campaign Against Sport in South Africa,” International Journal 43, no. 4 (1988): 652-3. 78
Thompson, 19; Kidd, 653. 79
Booth, The Race Game, 78. 80
Nixon, 77. 81
Douglas Martin, “Dennis Brutus Dies at 85; Fought Apartheid with Sports,” New York Times, Jan 2, 2010. 82
Lapchick, 48; Dennis Brutus, The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography, ed. Bernth Lindfors
(Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer Inc.), 121.
19
Africa, during the 1940s, Brutus discovered that he had competed with and against “some
absolutely brilliant black athletes whose performances were better than those of the South
Africans who were being selected to go to the Olympic Games and everywhere else, but because
the blacks were black they couldn’t get on the team.” According to Brutus, his personal
observations of the racial injustices in South African apartheid sport ultimately led to his
involvement in forming organizations that sought to racially-integrate sports at all levels in South
Africa83
During the late 1950s, Brutus co-founded the S.A.S.A., a non-racial alternative to the all-
white sports bodies of the apartheid state and the predecessor to S.A.N.R.O.C. As the
organization’s secretary, Brutus played an instrumental role in the cancellation of the West
Indies cricket team’s proposed tour of South Africa in 1959.84
Lapchick indicates that the
S.A.S.A.’s campaign to stop the West Indian tour of South Africa marked the organization’s first
chance to openly oppose apartheid sport. Responding to the South African government’s
announcement that the West Indian cricket team would only be allowed to compete against other
nonwhites, the S.A.S.A. “manifested its opposition by petitioning government leaders in South
Africa and in the West Indies as well as by public statements by its own leaders, especially
Dennis Brutus.” 85
According to Brutus, the 1959 movement against the West Indian cricket tour
cemented the S.A.S.A.’s role as the “’campaigning body on racism in sports.’”86
Even though the South African government had issued a series of orders between 1961
and 1962 that banned Brutus from writing and prevented him from leaving Johannesburg,
Brutus, the president of the S.A.N.R.O.C, emerged as a “decisive figure” of the struggle against
83
Dennis Brutus,” South Africa History Online, last modified February 17, 2011. Accessed April 23, 2017; Brutus,
Dennis Brutus Tapes, 136-7; Brutus, Poetry and Protest, 27. 84
“Dennis Brutus,” South African History Online, last modified February 17, 2011. 85
Lapchick, 29. 86
Lapchick, 29.
20
apartheid sport during the 1960s.87
In his memoirs, Brutus writes that S.A.N.R.O.C. was
specifically founded in 1962 to be the driving force of the international effort to expel the
apartheid state from Olympic competition.88
According to Lapchick, South Africa’s nonracial
Olympic body “was destined not only to lead but also to become the very symbol of the struggle
for nonracial sport in South Africa.”89
In their appeals to Avery Brundage, the president of the
I.O.C., Brutus and other representatives of S.A.N.R.O.C. asserted that Olympic recognition of
the South African apartheid regime represented a direct contradiction to the I.O.C.’s charter that
specifically made it illegal for any participating nation “to discriminate on the grounds of race.”90
As S.A.N.R.O.C. leaders such as Brutus, Sam Ramsamy, and John Harris increasingly
demanded the expulsion of the apartheid regime from the Olympic Games, the South African
government took additional measures to restrict Brutus’s political influence. Although the
apartheid state declined to take action against S.A.N.R.O.C. due to the fact that it “initially did
not see S.A.N.R.O.C. as a major threat,” the South African government introduced a series of
bans in 1963 that prohibited Brutus from teaching, belonging to any organization, or attending
any meeting of more than two people.91
During a 1963 meeting with a Swiss journalist tasked
with reporting the conditions of South African sport to the I.O.C., Johannesburg police arrested
Brutus “allegedly for violating the terms of his banning order.”92
Upon his release, Brutus, in an
effort to testify at the upcoming I.O.C. meeting in Germany where its member states would
debate the issue of South Africa’s participation at the 1964 Olympics, violated his bail agreement
and left South Africa.93
Brutus’s attempt to travel to Germany, however, proved futile as
87
Brutus, The Dennis Brutus Tapes, 17; Nixon, 77. 88
Brutus, Poetry and Protest, 38. 89
Lapchick, 48. 90
Brutus, 38. 91
Nixon, 77; Lapchick, 51; Nauright, 129. 92
Corrigall, 5; Brutus, The Dennis Brutus Tapes, 17. 93
Nixon, 77.
21
Portuguese authorities detained Brutus in Mozambique and covertly handed him over to the
South African government.94
When Brutus attempted to escape from a Johannesburg detention
center after receiving an eighteen-month prison sentence, South African authorities shot the
prominent anti-apartheid activist in the back.95
While Brutus ultimately survived his gunshot
wounds, Corrigall argues, “the case of Dennis Brutus is just one example of Government action
to intimidate and silence sportsmen who work for non-racial sport.”96
According to Nauright, the
arrest and shooting of Brutus brought greater international attention to racist sport in South
Africa.97
Occurring just three weeks before the pivotal I.O.C. meeting in Germany, the publicity
over the Brutus incident “undoubtedly had a marked effect” on the I.O.C.’s eventual decision to
deliver an ultimatum to the South African apartheid regime.98
As previously mentioned, the issue of South Africa’s participation in the Olympic
Movement resurfaced at a 1963 I.O.C. meeting in Germany. Due to the combination of increased
international protest against the apartheid government, in the aftermath of the Sharpeville
massacre, and the growing influence of Eastern Bloc and Third World sporting bodies, Nauright
writes that the I.O.C. changed its earlier stance on the apartheid state’s status for the Olympics.
The I.O.C. demanded that, if South Africa wanted to participate in the 1964 Games at Tokyo, it
would have to “abide by the I.O.C.’s policy of non-discrimination in selection” and change its
racial policies in sport.99
In the event that the apartheid regime and the S.A.O.C. failed to
adequately address the racial segregation and discrimination permeating in South African sport,
the I.O.C. announced that South Africa would be “’de-barred from entering its teams in the
94
Corrigall, 5. 95
Nixon, 78. 96
Corrigall, 6. 97
Nauright, 137. 98
Lapchick, 51-2. 99
Nauright, 136-7.
22
Olympic Games.’”100
While the S.A.O.C. favorably responded to the I.O.C.’s demands by
selecting several black athletes for the upcoming Games, the South African government refused
to comply and announced that it would not allow multiracial teams to represent South Africa in
international competition.101
In lieu of the apartheid regime’s reluctance to change racially
discriminatory sports policies, the I.O.C., thus, banned South Africa from the upcoming Tokyo
Games.102
As a result of the relentless campaign directed by Brutus and the leaders of S.A.N.R.O.C.
along with the South African government’s refusal to change its position regarding apartheid
sport, the I.O.C. voted to suspend South Africa from the 1964 Olympics. For Booth, the “most
important strategy” of the movement to isolate South Africa from the Olympic community was
Brutus’s ability to “draw the attention of the international sports federations, and in particular the
I.O.C., to clauses in their constitutions that prohibited racial discrimination.”103
Although the
exclusion of South Africa from the 1964 Games marked a major triumph for Brutus and the
representatives of South Africa’s leading non-racial sporting body, the apartheid regime
immediately struck back by outlawing the organization. By the middle of 1964, S.A.N.R.O.C.’s
leaders were “in prison, under house arrest, in exile, or underground, all in the name of a
government policy of ‘keeping politics out of sport.’”104
In the aftermath of the I.O.C.’s decision to suspend South Africa from the 1964 Olympic
Games and the retaliatory governmental crackdowns against S.A.N.R.O.C. that soon followed,
Lapchick writes that the issue of South African apartheid sport seemed to diminish in 1965. Due
to the apartheid regime’s persecution of S.A.N.R.O.C.’s leaders, the non-racial sports
100
Lapchick, 52. 101
Nauright 136-7. 102
Nauright, 136-7. 103
Lapchick, 72; Booth, 111. 104
Nixon, 77.
23
organization’s ability to function within South Africa “had been reduced to zero.”105
Later that
year, S.A.N.R.O.C. formally suspended all of its activities in South Africa.106
After serving an
eighteen-month prison sentence on the infamous Robben Island and his subsequent forced exile
from South Africa upon release, Brutus immigrated to London where he, Chris de Broglio, and
Reg Hlongwane, two leading S.A.N.R.O.C. figures that were also in exile, reestablished the
organization in 1966.107
According to Lapchick, the rebirth of South Africa’s leading nonracial
Olympic body “meant trouble for South African sports.” 108
As president of the revitalized
S.A.N.R.O.C., Brutus stressed that he had “the opportunity to pull the whole continent of Africa
together on the question of boycotting the Mexico Olympics” if the South African apartheid
regime participated.109
Nauright argues that S.A.N.R.O.C.’s primary objective of convincing the
I.O.C. to exclude South Africa from the 1968 Olympic Games was aided by the formation of
another important non-racial sports organization, the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa, in
Mali later that year.110
The S.C.S.A., a sporting coalition of thirty-two African nations, utilized the athletic feats
of black Africans as a political tool to attack racially-exclusive sport in South African and
Rhodesia.111
Organized under a constitution written by Brutus himself, Kidd writes that the
S.C.S.A. asserted, “it wanted the international federations and national sports bodies to stop
sporting contacts with South Africa” and threatened to boycott all major competitions to which
South Africa was invited.112
The S.C.S.A.’s determination to isolate the apartheid regime from
international competitions such as the Olympics is most evident in an organizational resolution
105
Lapchick, 72. 106
Booth, 79. 107
Nixon, 78; Lapchick, 73. 108
Lapchick, 73. 109
Brutus, Poetry and Protest, 133. 110
Nauright, 137. 111
Nauright, 137. 112
Brutus, 133; Kidd, 653.
24
in which the non-racial sports body specifically states that it will attempt “to use every means to
obtain the expulsion of South African sports organizations from the Olympic movement and
from International Federations.”113
In his memoirs, Brutus acknowledges that S.C.S.A.’s
formation in 1966 represented a pivotal moment in the struggle to exclude South Africa from the
international sporting community in that “there was a united body for sports in Africa that could
take unified action. This was to be important in the next Olympic year, 1968.”114
During a February 1968 meeting in Grenoble, France, representatives of the I.O.C. voted
to allow South Africa to compete in the upcoming Mexico City Games.115
The I.O.C.’s decision
to reinstate South Africa into the Olympic movement was made shortly after the conclusion of a
fact-finding mission, which dubiously reported significant progress in the racial integration of
South African sport.116
In addition to the release of the I.O.C. report, Frank Braun, the President
of the S.A.O.C., had met with I.O.C. executives in Tehran in May 1967 to announce a series of
concessions that South Africa was willing to make in order to compete in Mexico City. While
these concessions included the assurance that South Africa would send a multiracial team to the
Games, Braun admitted that the pre-Olympic trials in South Africa “still will be on a segregated
basis because law prohibits mixing of races in sports.”117
Although the movement against
apartheid sport was on the verge of securing the limited goal of a racially integrated Olympic
team, the African National Congress declared that “it was a cynical act of hypocrisy even to
suggest that they will march under the same flag and sing the same National Anthem when they
113
Supreme Council for Sport in Africa, “Resolution Concerning South Africa,” (Bamako, December 1966), SCSA
Collection. 114
Brutus, 133-4. 115
Lapchick, 202. 116
Nauright, 137. 117
Lapchick, 93; Associated Press, “Africa Verdict Roils Olympics,” Chicago Tribune, February 17, 1968,
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune.
25
are prohibited from doing so inside South Africa.”118
According to Lapchick, both S.A.N.R.O.C.
and the S.C.S.A. were similarly “not willing to accept the compromises offered as anything more
than tokenism.”119
In response to the I.O.C.’s decision to reinstate South Africa, Brutus and the S.C.S.A. met
in Brazzaville to organize the strategy for the exclusion of South Africa from the upcoming
Olympic Games.120
In his memoirs, Brutus writes that he appealed to countries in the Caribbean,
South America, Asia and Eastern Europe to join S.C.S.A. nations in boycotting the Olympics.
By the spring of 1968, S.A.N.R.O.C. and the S.C.S.A. persuaded almost sixty countries to
boycott the 1968 Olympics if the I.O.C. allowed South Africa to compete.121
Faced with boycott
threats from the Soviet Union, member nations of the S.C.S.A., and famous African American
athletes such as Lew Alcindor, Tommy Smith, and John Carlos, the I.O.C., fearing “racial
tension throughout the world” would lead to demonstrations and physical violence against the
South African team in Mexico City, voted in late April to withdraw South Africa’s invitation to
1968 Games.122
According to Kidd, the I.O.C.’s fear that “such a long list of absentees” would
lead to significant losses in both revenue and prestige also factored in the committee’s vote to
reverse the Grenoble decision.123
Just two years after the I.O.C.’s suspension of South Africa from the Mexico City
Olympics, the S.C.S.A. gathered in Cairo and drafted a resolution demanding the apartheid
state’s expulsion from the Olympics entirely rather than merely being suspended from individual
Games. If the I.O.C. failed to accept these demands, the S.C.S.A. threatened that its member
118
African National Congress, Commentary #12, January 26, 1968, SAN-ROC Collection. 119
Lapchick, 135. 120
Brutus, The Dennis Brutus Tapes, 21. 121
Brutus, Poetry and Protest, 134. 122
Associated Press, “S. Africa Out of Olympics;” Chicago Tribune, April 24, 1968, ProQuest Historical
Newspapers: Chicago Tribune; Frank Litsky, “65 Athletes Support Boycott of Olympics on S. Africa Issue,” New
York Times, April 12, 1968, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times. 123
Kidd, 654.
26
states would boycott the 1972 Games in Munich, a notion supported by nations in Third World
and the Socialist Bloc. Faced with boycott threats from more than fifty countries worldwide,
I.O.C. officials met in Amsterdam to discuss the apartheid state’s Olympic future. In March
1970, I.O.C. representatives officially voted to expel South African apartheid sport from
Olympic competition. By the end of May, Lapchick notes that South Africa was on the verge of
total isolation from the international sporting community. In addition to its exclusion from the
Olympic Games, South Africa “was either expelled or suspended in the following sports; table
tennis, football (soccer), basketball, fencing, judo, volleyball, boxing, weightlifting, tennis
(Davis Cup), gymnastics, big game fishing, cycling, and netball.”124
Nixon further asserts that
the unprecedented decision to expel South Africa from the Games resulted in a “domino effect”
in which African, Asian, and Caribbean nations expanded the scope of the sports boycott by
refusing to play not just against South Africa but also against countries who maintained sporting
ties with the apartheid state.125
In a 1991 New York Times article, Youssef Ibrahim points out that the twenty-one year
expulsion of South Africa from Olympic competition was by far the longest international boycott
against the apartheid regime, preceding other economic and political boycotts levied by the
international community during the late twentieth century. Satisfied with South Africa’s gradual
commitment to abolishing racial discrimination in sport, in 1991 the I.O.C. finally lifted the ban
against South Africa thus allowing the nation to compete at the 1992 Summer Games in
Barcelona. Ibrahim further notes that the I.O.C’s decision cleared the way for the renewal of
124
Lapchick, “The Olympic Movement and Racism,” 16; Lapchick, “Politics of Race and International Sport,” 197,
203. 125
Nixon, 78.
27
South Africa’s international participation in non-Olympic sports such as rugby and cricket, from
which the apartheid state had also been banned.126
Due to the combination of South Africa’s expulsion from the Olympic movement and its
near total isolation from the international sporting community later that year, increasing numbers
of white South Africans began to question the overall benefits of apartheid sport.127
According to
Houston, South Africa’s exclusion from international sport had a tremendous psychological
impact on the country’s white minority population.128
Lapchick further notes, “South Africans
have made sport so important in their country that they have allowed themselves to become quite
vulnerable to domestic and international pressure.”129
A July 1970 New York Times article
indicates that isolation from competitions such as the Olympics “has hurt the sports-mad white
South Africans.”130
During the mid-1970s, a majority of South African’s whites regarded the
nation’s exclusion from international competition as one of the three most damaging
consequences of apartheid.131
Dennis Brutus further asserts that when South Africa is denied the
opportunity to compete on the international stage, its white minority population will “look at the
country beyond the sportsfield: then apartheid South Africa will go down the drain.”132
Conclusion
The transnational movement to expel the South African apartheid state from the Olympic
Games symbolizes just one of countless historical examples of how sports, particularly at the
international level, intersected with both race and politics. As a result of the South African
126
Youssef M. Ibrahim, “Olympics; Olympic Committee Ends Its Ban on Participation by South Africa,” New York
Times, July 10, 1991. 127
Lapchick, 203. 128
Houston, 38. 129
Lapchick, 205. 130
“Sports-Loving South Africans Feel Pressure of World Boycotts,” New York Times, July 25, 1970, ProQuest
Historical Newspapers: The New York Times. 131
Nixon, 75. 132
Dennis Brutus, “Sport: Threat to the Security of the State,” Fighting Talk (December 1961, January 1962): 18.
South African History Online.
28
government’s persistent refusal to comply with I.O.C.’s standards of universal inclusion, South
African apartheid sport indefinitely was banned from the premier international sporting
competition for almost three decades. Spearheaded by Dennis Brutus and S.A.N.R.O.C., the
Olympic boycott had a devastating political and social impact on South Africa’s white minority
government, which had traditionally used international sport to demonstrate and reinforce ideals
of racial superiority.
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